1. Field of The Invention
The present invention generally relates to a loading mechanism of electronic units and a disk array device, and more particularly to an electronic unit loading mechanism and a disk array device in which a plurality of electronic units (hard disk drives) are loaded to the electronic unit loading base.
2. Description of The Related Art
In recent years, there has been proposed the disk array device in which the plurality of hard disk drives (HDD) are loaded, in order to realize the external storage that has a high speed and a large capacity with high reliability. See Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 07-050493, for example.
In the case of the disk array device, if the need for the maintenance arises, the operating condition of the entire disk array device is maintained and only the hard disk drive which requires the maintenance is exchanged. In the composition wherein the hard disk drive can easily be detached from or attached to the disk array device, there is a possibility that the hard disk drive may be detached or attached erroneously during the recording/reproducing operation, and the disk array device may be damaged in such a case.
For this reason, the disk array device is usually configured to have the composition wherein the hard disk drives are accommodated in the device main part (housing) of the disk array device on the normal occasion (except the time of the maintenance).
FIG. 1 is a perspective diagram showing the composition of the disk array device 100 disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 07-050493. FIG. 2 is a perspective diagram showing the composition of the HDD assembly which is loaded to the disk array device 100.
The holder 139 is provided in the HDD 138, and the lever 141 which can be rotated in the direction of the arrow A in FIG. 2 is provided on the front face of the holder 139. Hereinafter, the HDD 138 and the holder 139 are collectively referred to as the electronic unit 110.
The disk array device 100 is configured as the composition in which the plurality of electronic units 110 are loaded in the device main part 135 which is supported by the four rack pillars 142.
The device main part 135 is made to be in conformity with the standard dimensions, and the width thereof (indicated by the arrows Y1 and Y2 in FIG. 1) is made to be equal to 19 inches.
The cage 136 which can contain the plurality of electronic units 110 is formed in the interior of the device main part 135, and the guide rails 140 which guide the attaching and detaching of the electronic unit 110 are formed in the cage 136.
When the electronic unit 110 is detached from or attached to the device main part 135, the lever 141 is pushed down in the front direction indicated by the arrow A, the pushed-down lever 141 is held and the electronic unit 110 is attached to or detached from the device main part 135.
At this time, the electronic unit 110 is guided on the guide rails 140 formed in the device main part 135, and attached to or detached from the cage 136 in the direction indicated by the arrow X2 or X1 in FIG. 1. Thereby, the electronic unit 110 can be easily attached to or detached from the device main part 135.
In recent years, while the storage capacity of the disk array device is increasing, the HDD loaded to the device main part 135 is changed to the 2.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives from the 3.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives. The storage capacity of the 2.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives is almost the same as the storage capacity of the 3.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives, and the former is smaller in size than the latter.
For this reason, the replacement of the composition equipped with 3.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives in the standard-dimension device main part 135 with the composition equipped with 2.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives can raise the storage capacity of the disk array device 100.
As mentioned above, the 2.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives are smaller in size than the 3.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives. However, as shown in FIG. 1, if the method of attachment and detachment in the X1 or X2 direction is used to the device main part 135 similar to the 3.5 inch-diameter hard disk drives, the number of the hard disk drives that can be loaded to the device main part 135 is limited.
For this reason, there is proposed the composition wherein the drawer cage which can be attached to or detached from the device main part 135 in the direction indicated by the arrow X2 or X1 in FIG. 1 is provided, and the electronic units are attached to or detached from the drawer cage in the vertical direction.
Although the composition using the drawer cage can raise the efficiency of loading the electronic units (the 2.5 inch diameter HDD), it is necessary to vertically insert the electronic unit from the upper part of the drawer cage when the electronic unit is accommodated in the drawer cage, and the operator cannot easily view the guide members (equivalent to the guide rails 140 shown in FIG. 1) for the electronic unit.
For this reason, the operation to load the electronic units to the drawer cage is troublesome, and there is the problem in that the operator may perform the loading operation to a wrong loading position or it takes much time to load the electronic unit to the drawer cage.